i was referring to the 'growth' of micro outstripping mid or macro stock. that seems the real trend and the source of threat to the pros. i don't know what its absolute share of the market is though. minuscule?

No __ far from it and the gap is closing almost daily. It's difficult to get an accurate handle on the figures because micro is growing incredibly rapidly and macro sales are shrinking just as quickly. Alamy for example recently reported that US$ sales had shrunk by about 70% in the last year alone __ of course they blamed it on 'the recession' rather than competition from elsewhere. My guess is that total micro sales will outstrip macro within the next couple of years. Five years from now nobody will even be discussing it. They'll always be plenty of 'high-end' agencies trying sell into niche markets at high prices but they'll be tiny markets and relatively little money to be made from it.

Guys like Yuri and Andres are the real litmus test of where the industry is heading. I'm sure they'd both rather be flogging their images for hundreds rather than single $'s and it seems unlikely that any significant agency would bar their entry __ quite the reverse. Yet somehow they've both uploaded well over 300 new images apiece to the micros already this month. Like it or not micro is the future and where most of the money is (already?) going to be be in the future.

Quote from: RT on October 14, 2009, 03:45

Categories - Are they really that necessary?

Here here 

+1 more!

Quote from: KB on October 13, 2009, 21:29

For Fotolia: Does anyone there notice the number of contributor complaints about inconsistent and annoying reviewing standards (more so than any other site, by far)? Any hope of educating reviewers towards implementing a focused, coherent, and clear vision of what is technically and aesthetically acceptable (and conveying same to contributors as well)?

Actually I find FT about the most consistent agency out there. Virtually the only rejections I've got in the last year, out of something like 700-odd uploads, are if I upload a view of a property without a PR. Ergo, I don't. Simples.

Much, much better than all those imaginary 'artifacts' or 'isolation too rough or too smooth' nonsense from IS __ which basically means you just uploaded an image that might seriously compete with one of the inspector's own images.

I seriously wonder, given the large differences in experiences that people have with FT, whether some accounts are marked as "pass", and others "fail".

I just ran a small test over the last 10 days. I submitted the same 5 photos to all the top agencies. Here were the results:

123: 4 of 5 accepted
BigStock: 5 of 5 accepted
DT: 5 of 5 accepted
FT: 0 of 5 accepted
IS: 5 of 5 accepted
SS: 5 of 5 accepted
StockXpert: 5 of 5 accepted

For 123, the one rejection was "lighting/composition".

For FT, all 5 rejections were for "quality of photo".

It's been my experience, and thus my question for FT, that there is a disconnect between FT reviewers and the rest of the stock sites. My acceptance ratio is 80%-95% on all other sites, but is well below 50% on FT. Are FT's standards so much greater than all the other sites? I don't think so, since I'm sure if I re-submitted those 5 images enough times (which I definitely will not bother doing), eventually they would all get accepted.

So my question, re-phrased, is that something in the review process is broken at FT, and are they going to fix it or not?

Hi AP and all,

 Definitely a growth of great proportion thus the drop in the other models. Istock sold $865,000 in sales just yesterday. Just one day, that's serious chowder at a few bucks a piece. The RF Macro has dropped significantly and someone said it dropped 70%. %'s don't mean much if you don't mention dollars. RF Macro had the room to drop that far and still make more than Micro clearly for my company because the RPI in Macro RF used to be $3-$4 hundred a year with a $1500 hundred life average, that's per image. Now it dropped 70% so you make $400- $ 450 dollars off your RPI in Macro RF over it's life ( 3-5 years ). I am still making more per image a year on my Macro RF by far and I haven't produced hardly at all for it in 09'. As a matter of fact I have some Macro RF ( 1400 ) images from an old collection I have not added to for 5 years and it still outsells my Micro images that are brand new.
 RM is a completely different model from Micro that will have buyers for quite some time  and can actually take advantage of some of the chinks in the Micro armour. I don't consider Alamy as one of the RM players though so that makes a big difference around here. Corbis and Getty RM are still making way more RPI than Micro and motion is huge in RM compared to Micro, for the time being.
 Diversification in as many models as you can keeps you safely protected in the long run. It's like Roulette, I have a much better chance of winning betting on red than I do on 27. All models have there place at this time, to early to say that some are dead or dying. Watch and wait to see where you might play your chips and keeps your bets small and across the table till the wheel gets hot.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Quote from: sjlocke on October 14, 2009, 20:14

That is incorrect.  Getty has invited a select group of iStock exclusives to submit to their editorial collection.  A move that will unlikely be extended to any non-exclusive for obvious reasons.

Sean, what are the obvious reasons?

Well, the obvious reason (at least to me) is that there is a way for everyone, exclusive and non, to join Getty and that is applying through Getty.   Offering that desirable option to everyone also does not increase their exclusive contributor base.

I am still making more per image a year on my Macro RF by far and I haven't produced hardly at all for it in 09'. As a matter of fact I have some Macro RF ( 1400 ) images from an old collection I have not added to for 5 years and it still outsells my Micro images that are brand new.

My Getty income has stalled and dropped since the beginning of this year.

Deleted

Hi Amosnet,

 Thank you for the interviews. Very kind of you.

Cheers,
Jomathan